The actual story doesn’t quite reflect the newspaper version…
In 1957, my parents were renting a house on 19th Avenue in the city. In March of 1957 there was an earthquake that caused some damage to the place. It was lathe and plaster construction and a lot of the plaster had cracked and crumbled – especially in the downstairs entry.
In May – a mere 2 months later – my mom gave birth to twin girls – children numbers 4 and 5. We had outgrown the house.
My father had been in the Fire Department for about three years at this point – steady income, albeit not the highest salary for someone running into burning buildings on a daily basis – their salaries were dependent on the whim of the voters – and San Francisco voters were notoriously cheap when it came to their public service employees.
In July of 1957 using his WWII GI Bill, they bought a bouse in South San Francisco – on the street leading up to Sign Hill Park on the south side of San Bruno Mountain where “South San Francisco The Industrial City” is spelled out in white painted concrete letters. It was the model home for the development.
My father was driving back and forth with loaded trailers from old home to new while my mom was upstairs packing and dealing with 5 kids all under 8 years of age. She sent my bother and me out to the backyard to get us out of her hair while she dealt with my 4 year old and 2-month old sisters – and packed more stuff.
We decided to dig a hole – probably to China – who knows… we were kids. Mike had me keep getting in the hole to see how deep it was. It was up to about my shoulders when he started filling it in.
Being that we had been digging in sand, it was compacting around me. The more I tried to move, the tighter it got. I started crying and Mike got scared. My mother heard the ruckus and saw what we were up to. She ran down to try and get me out. The old woman who lived behind us heard the cries and came over to help – by putting a ladder up against the fence, sitting on the top of the fence, and then lifting the ladder over to climb down into our yard. Pretty impressive!
They were having no luck and I was crying like a kid buried in the sand up to my neck. They called the Fire Department.
Fortunately, the closest station was only a few blocks away, and San Francisco’s Finest were there to rescue me – digging out from several feet away to keep the sand from compacting even more. Even though my head was above the ground, the sand was compacting around my diaphragm. It would have eventually suffocated me.
I was saved, no one was spanked or punished, and we spent the night in our new home.
Alas, that home only lasted a year. City Employees were required to live IN the city back in those days. Pop got caught, and they had to sell the house and move back or lose his SFFD job.